


daddy doesn't love me

by satirrian



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of Violence, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Post-Series, Zuko (Avatar) Angst, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, not gonna lie this one is kinda sad, ozai dies, the gaang are all doing important things off screen, this story is about him trying to come to terms with it, zuko has some feelings of self-hatred, zuko hears that his dad died, zuko is fire lord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23979838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satirrian/pseuds/satirrian
Summary: Zuko is twenty-two when his father dies in prison.
Relationships: Ozai & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 488





	daddy doesn't love me

**Author's Note:**

> Story inspired by the song [ Daddy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yn3esU484) by AJJ.

Zuko reads the news on a scroll, handed to him in the dead of night by one of his guards. Her name is Mato, Zuko remembers, and she’s new. She tells him that a messenger had been sent from the palace’s post office. She had already checked the scroll for some kind of tampering, and knowing those soldiers employed in surveying outgoing and ingoing mail, she hadn’t been the only one. So, Mato hands him a scroll that has already been opened countless times. The wax seal is broken, falling apart. The paper is practically well-worn. 

Zuko receives all his mail this way but it doesn’t stop him from feeling like he was the last person in an unbroken string of soldiers and messengers to find out that his own father was dead. 

“My lord?” Mato asks him, when he says nothing. 

He’s wearing his sleep robe. His hair is loose around his shoulders. He reads the scroll by a small fire in the middle of his palm. He knows that he hasn’t reacted in any way, and he knows that Mato knows exactly what he just read. She’s probably expecting something from him. 

“Unfortunate,” Zuko says. His voice is normal. His face is normal. He rolls up the scroll and sets it down on his bedside table. “Thank you for waking me. You may return to your post.”

Mato pauses, and for an instant Zuko thinks that she won’t listen to him. But then she bows. “Good night, my lord.”

Zuko waves his hand in a vague dismissal, already turned away. When the door shuts behind Mato, he sits cross-legged on his large, empty bed. He leans his elbows on his knees, and then collapses his face into his hands. 

_I’m tired,_ he thinks. 

Of course he’s tired. He was woken up in the middle of the night. 

_That’s not what I mean,_ his brain says to him, the thoughts slithering through his mind. _You’re not cut out for this. You’re in over your head. Your country hates you. The Earth Kingdom hates you. The Northern Water Tribe hates you. Your sister hates you. Your father—_

“My father is dead,” Zuko says aloud to his empty room. 

The words seem to ring, a statement that reverberates the silence. But, in truth, there was nothing special about them. Everyone’s father had to die, at some point. Why should now be any different? Why should he be any different? 

Zuko scrubs his hands down his scarred face. 

“Fuck him,” Zuko says, but there isn’t anything behind it. No conviction. No anger. No sadness. No happiness. There’s nothing. “Fuck _him,_ ” he tries again. 

But the words are blank. They’re almost questioning in their unsureness, their complete lack of any emotional attachment. He says them because that is what he thinks he should be saying. 

He thinks of Katara, his friend, and thinks that she might be happy right now. When the news reaches her— and he can’t help thinking that she already knows, that everyone in the world already knows and that he is the last to hear of it— her and Toph, sequestered in the Earth Kingdom palace in Ba Sing Se, working in their capacity to keep the Earth Kingdom from tearing into the Fire Nation like a cornered Gemsbok bull charging at a man’s back— Katara might be pleased by it. 

Zuko pictures it now. Toph would toss her head back, letting out a loud guffaw. “He finally kicked it!”

Katara would say, in that quiet, cold fury of hers, “It’s what he deserves.”

But maybe that isn’t entirely fair. Katara loved her family. She killed for them, fought for them, would have died for them. If Katara were in Zuko’s place, right now. If Katara’s father had died, she would be— sad? Distraught? Grieving?

Zuko rolls onto his back and stares up at the canopy of his bed. It’s cold in his room, but he doesn’t touch his blankets. 

He thinks that Aang will be very upset, and that he will have to deal with that in the morning. Aang will burst into his rooms during breakfast. Zuko will have to issue an investigation. Aang will insist that they both go to the prison themselves, speak to the warden. And they will do that. They will travel to the prison, the two of them, on Appa. 

Zuko will do what is required of him. He will demand to know what had happened to Ozai— and he will say _Ozai_ and not Dad, not father. 

The warden, in all likelihood, will tell him that his father killed himself. 

Zuko will nod. He won’t react to the news in any way at all, but Aang will. Zuko will have to comfort him. In the hallway outside the warden’s office, Aang will collapse against the stone brick wall, covering his face, stifling the sounds of his sobs. And Zuko will rest his hand on Aang’s shoulder, unable to bring himself to hug him, even though that was probably what Aang needed. Zuko will hate himself for this. 

Maybe Aang will even apologize to him. “I’m sorry, Zuko, I— I should never have let this happen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Zuko will say. “It’s no one’s fault.”

“Yes,” Aang will insist, “Zuko, you— you don’t understand, I made this— I _caused_ this— I can’t—” Zuko will tighten his grip on Aang’s shoulder, but still be unable to hug him. 

Aang will eventually gather the shattered pieces of himself back into his arms. He will be strong, but weighed down, heavier than he was before. And at that point Aang will insist that they speak with Azula. 

Zuko doesn’t want to, he realizes. He doesn’t want to speak with Azula. 

This has him sitting up in bed. He stares across his pitch dark room at the tapestry of the Fire Nation’s symbol, near-black in the low light trickling through the window. 

It is shocking because this is the first reaction he has had, the first proper reaction. He visits Azula nearly every week. He feels compelled to, especially in those early days, back when he was young and too old at the same time. Nearly seventeen. He is twenty-two now, and only now he realizes how much of a child they had all been. 

He visits Azula every week. They mostly talk about nothing. She usually says something to make fun of him, and then he says something to make fun of her. Whoever loses is whoever gets angry, but they have always been winning, lately. Both of them. 

Zuko thinks, with a sudden clarity, that it is possible that Azula has killed their father. 

They both stayed in the same facility. They’d both been gaining a lot of leeway, privileges. It isn’t unreasonable to think that Azula had shoved a kitchen knife through their father’s chest. 

Zuko finds himself pressing a hand over his heart. It has started to beat faster, like Zuko is fighting some kind of battle. But there is nothing but his empty room and his dry eyes. 

He thinks that Azula must love their father. His father was good to her. His father doted on her. She must love him as much as she loves anything. Then why did he think that Azula would kill him? That doesn’t make any sense. He isn’t making any sense. 

_I’m saying Azula,_ he thinks, _But I really mean me._

_I think I wanted to kill him._

He stares across the room but he doesn’t see anything.

It’s not entirely right, either. Because if that were true, then wouldn’t he feel upset that someone had beat him to it? Wouldn’t he feel robbed? But he just feels— 

Nothing. 

He desperately wishes that his room isn’t so empty. His heart clenches, and he suddenly misses days of traveling with the Avatar, but more than that— he misses days of traveling with his uncle. 

His uncle is in the palace right now. Zuko could go see him, wake him up in the middle of the night. Maybe his uncle is already awake. Maybe he has received the news already. Maybe his uncle is crying. 

The idea is too much. Zuko cannot do it. Cannot bear to face him. His uncle is different from everyone else— his uncle knows what Zuko’s father did to him in a way that no one else does. His uncle will look at him and immediately think that he understands why Zuko is so cold, so empty, so _nothing_ — but that is something that no one can do. Zuko doesn’t want anyone to. 

No— 

Zuko doesn’t want to speak with his uncle. He doesn’t want to visit Azula. He doesn’t want to deal with Aang. He is glad that Katara and Toph are half a world away, but he wishes— 

He wishes that Sokka were here, instead of leading aid throughout the famine-stricken colonies. 

Sokka. 

He wishes he could talk with Sokka. 

He can’t guess at what Sokka would say. He can’t put the words in his mouth. But Sokka wouldn’t look at him and expect something from him. Zuko knows that much. Agni, but what if he said— 

“But he was your dad, Zuko.”

Or— 

“After what he did to you? Fuck him!”

Or—

“He was a piece of shit that deserved what he got. Buddy, I know how much it hurt you to keep visiting him. I don’t know why you kept doing it. On second thought, I _do_ know why— it’s because you hate yourself. I’m just glad he can finally stop hurting you. I’m just glad that you can finally be free.”

Or— 

“You must miss him.”

Zuko pushes himself off his bed and lands on his bare feet, feeling the cold wood of the floor. He walks out of his bedchamber, out of his rooms entirely, until he emerges into the palace hallway, where he finds Mato and another member of his personal guard, Izu. 

Mato looks up at him. “My lord?” 

She and Izu are shooting dice in a small wooden box. The hallway is brightly lit with torches, spaced every meter or so. His guards push themselves to their feet. They hastily stand at attention, and Izu kicks the dice box so it is hidden behind his feet. 

“Mato,” Zuko says, but he can’t immediately find what he needs to say. 

She watches him in silence, him in his sleeping clothes, with mussed hair, with no shoes. Their Fire Lord. 

“Mato, I hate my father,” Zuko tells her. “I hate him more than I have ever hated anything in this entire fucked up world.”

Mato breathes in a shallow breath. Izu shifts uncertainly on his feet. 

“But I’m going to miss him,” Zuko says. 

He blinks, and he thinks something is finally happening. His eyes feel hot and prickly. He ducks his head and pushes his way back inside his chambers, and he hates that he just told them that. He hates himself for saying it. 

Mato catches the door before it closes behind him. 

“Wait, my lord!”

Zuko stops in place, but he does not turn around. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. The words fall flat. Inconsequential. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Zuko doesn’t say anything for what feels like a long time. Mato should have closed the door, in that intervening moment. But she doesn’t. 

Zuko turns his head slightly to the side, but not enough to look at his guard. “What _loss?_ ” he says harshly. His voice comes out rough, choked. “Go back to your game.”

The door slowly closes behind him, plunging him back into darkness, cutting off that one source of light, leaving him with just his thoughts. 

In the morning, Aang will burst through his door unannounced. Zuko will be ready for him, kneeling at a table in his parlor, halfway through a tankard of rice wine. He will not look at Aang when he bursts in. But Zuko will say—

“Get out.”

And Aang will leave him, and he will get to be alone, just like he has always wanted.

—

**Author's Note:**

> [ Follow me on tumblr <3](https://satirewrites.tumblr.com/)


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